Thursday, July 27, 2006

Pickoff Moves, Lunchtime Edition

Jon Weisman Makes The Case For The Dodgers As Sellers

UTK On Bart

This could be something of a cascade injury, but the problem is that Colon has so many separate problems, there's no way to tell what injury led to this. The best-case scenario is that the altered mechanics led to the elbow irritation; the worst case is that something tore. We'll know more soon.

How Do You Feel About Your Ballpark?

Trade Deadline Heavy Breathing

Nate Silver thinks about who means what to each of the contending teams, and figures that Bobby Abreu, Carlos Lee, and Alfonso Soriano are the top three guys to be had this trade deadline; he likes Lee in particular for the Angels, but from Abreu (+1.48 wins) to Lee (+1.31 wins) to Soriano (+0.99 wins), none of these players will make a significant difference in the outcome of the season.

For those interested, I did a trade rumor roundup over at LAist yesterday, but didn't manage to work it in here. Until now.

Jim Bowden is asking for top prospects and lots of them in the latest news from the Soriano trade; the most recent asking price is one from column A of John Lackey, Ervin Santana, or Jered Weaver, and one from column B of Howie Kendrick or Brandon Wood.

"We know the price that we need to have from clubs," Bowden said. "The price doesn't change. The price today is the same price it's going to be at the deadline. We don't have to trade anybody."

He must like draft picks, then.

Doubled Down: Padres 10, Dodgers 3

Not only is this the worst 13-game stretch in Los Angeles history, it also marks the Dodgers descent with a thunk solidly into last place, seven and a half games out and eight games under .500. But what sort of surprised me was how many double plays the Dodgers got and still managed to lose: they collected five, one, improbably, on a lineout to Olmedo Saenz. The last time the Dodgers had five double plays, they won a 4-3 decision against the Reds on May 28, 1998, at home. Brad Penny, the only remaining Dodger starter with even a ghost of a chance at respectability, got tagged with the loss, further demoralizing everyone within earshot.

The loss made for a bad timing if you happened to be Frank McCourt, because he had scheduled a conference call yesterday. While I didn't tune in, the Dodger Thoughts reaction (starting around post 400-450) seemed to be generally negative, post 520 in particular, in response to Frank McCourt's waffling over the Vlad non-signing:

I will merely say that McCourt's answer was probably as cowardly as any ever given to any question in the history of mankind. Frank appears to talk a good game when he's getting profiled in the glossy magazine, but it's a different story when he's actually asked to do it.

I tried to be patient with him, but my patience with him, just from a personal standpoint, and without regard to his baseball philosophy (which remains in question), is up.

If you can't even summon the courage to defend not signing the [2004] American League [MVP] two years later, you have a problem.

To get draft picks, doesn't Bowden have to offer Soriano arbitration in the off season? Seems risky - Soriano could accept and net another $13MM salary. (After which, of course, Bowden could again try and deal him.) I think when all is said and done, he really has to look to trade him now.

It's not really risky at all. Worst case scenario he holds on to Soriano for one year and we play this all out again. But someone is going to come along and offer Soriano a huge deal AND tell him he can play second base, and he'll be gone.

But still, it's never the money that cripples a team. It's the years. If they don't trade Soriano, offering him arbitration is a total no-brainer.